Uh Oh Baby!

Uh-Oh, Baby! by Nancy Coffelt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book reminds me of our youngest son. It's very cute and well-illustrated. I think it's intended for toddlers and preschoolers and I think they can relate to another kid who's doing his best to do something (in Rudy's case making his mom a present) and then something goes wrong. They want to impress, for their mom to say "Wow!" instead of the constant "Uh oh!" when what they're trying to do is a little beyond them (in my toddler's case he wants to unload the dishwasher on his own - by standing on the open dishwasher door and then removing the dishes and intermingling them with whatever else might be on the counter - a serious uh-oh, but he's trying to help... he wants "Wow!").

While the ladybug isn't acknowledged in the text, it's obvious in the pictures and when storytelling to preschool-age kids, asking them what's happening in the picture "What happened here? Why did Rudy's picture blow away?" etc.... is pretty common. And kids are used to the visual - for them, the text *is* part of the picture, so the limited amount of text with a lot going on in the pictures is helpful for them because they don't have to rely on the text (which they can't read yet) to describe the action. Good Dog Carl is another book that has very limited text, but the story is told through the pictures.

Very highly recommended for parents of preschoolers and for story times.

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